okay, so sorry for the lack of updates in the past few months but we have been unable to access the wordpress site where we update the news part of this page and it has just now been fixed my mr jibs phillips.  so, here is a copy/paste of all the stuff from the past that you may have already read but may have missed on this page:

January 29th, 2006
hey again. as i write this, i am bouncing mixes of tracks for the mock orange / the band apart japanese only split EP. It is about 2:30am and i’ve been pretty much doing this all day, along with working on one of the new forget cassettes songs with beth for inclusion on the full length we are in the process of mixing/finishing. last night, i was up til 4am doing mock orange mixing and setting up the 3 summing boxes i’m shooting out from blackbird rentals. they are the SPL MixDream, the API 7800 master module with a 8200 aux mixer, and the Chandler Mini Rack Mixer. They are all really cool and have their own flavors. the only other summing bus i’ve used (besides just running through an actual console) is the inward connections one they have at alex the great. not saying which my favorite is, but they all sound great.

speaking of blackbird, i want to give a shoutout to my main man rolff zwiep over there, who is in charge of the rental department. let me tell you, they have the world’s largest collection of outboard gear and microphones and most of it is for rent (minus a few collectors pieces that i’m glad they don’t rent out to people and keep in the studios there, which are also amazing). rolff has consistently helped me pick great rentals and makes sure i’m getting what i want and suggesting really cool other pieces. some of the gear i’ve used in the past few months, thanks to rolff, are some pieces i wasn’t sure i’d ever end up getting to use cos they’re old or rare or what-have-you, but they’re there and available. i guess this is kind of a plug but mostly just saying that rolff is fucking awesome and blackbird is really great, if you would love to be able to use really great new or vintage gear that you have no way of being able to afford for yourself (much like my situation).

so, yeah, the mock orange stuff has turned out really cool, i think we can all agree. digging the way it sounds. very old sounding in a lot of ways.

the forget cassettes record is also sounding amazing. it’s seriously going to knock everyone on their asses. if it doesn’t, i’ll be totally shocked.

the mock orange has to be done in a few days, the forget cassettes, along with the long awaited (but fucking amazing) new apollo up record will be done and ready for mastering by the end of feb (or so my deadline says). also for feb, i will be mixing the new jeff record, which they recorded with richard feaster over at the castle in leipers fork or franklin or whatever it is… out there in the woods. it’s a pretty cool place.

there are also a number of bands talking to me about recording them in february and, pretty soon, i’m going to have to start pushing back tracking cos i’m getting so swamped with so many projects. it’s been great but also really tiring and somewhat stressful. but, i guess that’s what happens when you’re young (as i am, to some extent) and trying to get out there and work.

the hands down eugene record, madison was also mastered a week or so ago at yes master with jim demain. it’s 13 tracks long and is a modern psychedelic masterpiece, if i do say so myself, ever so humbly. it should be out around spring time, it looks like on the new jersey based label xoxo records.

if anyone is curious as to what i’ve been doing in my own personal time, when i have some, i read bob dylan’s chronicles vol. 1 and think it was a great read. i’ve also been totally hooked on the cake bake betty cd entitled songs about teeth!. it’s so fucking good. i’ve also recently gotten an advance of the new aloharecord, some echoes. they have consistently been one of my favorite bands since about 2000 and they haven’t let me down with this record, either. just keep getting better and more interesting.

okay, i’m sorta sick with the flu and coughing and still bouncing the mock orange stuff so i’m gonna get back to that but i hope everyone is doing well and is as excited as i am about all the great records coming out this year that i’ve helped out on.

oh yeah, and check this out… tommy keenum’s record, sentimental jambouree, is out now. you can order it through his website or go to places like grimey’s to buy it. it’s a really cool record and sounds fantastic.

January 10th, 2006
shit, it’s been a really long time i updated this news site. my apologies, but i do have a valid excuse… i lost the password and could not find a way to get it back. jib had to reinstall the whole damn thing, so that’s why it probably looks kinda weird right now. must reformat. i started to write an update in like novemeber or something and i have that saved but right now, i’m home from another 12+ hour day doing the new forget cassettes record (we’re slightly over a week in over at alex the great… little less than a week left). it’s been a super busy past few months including doing recordings with apollo up, mock orange, hands down eugene, deluxin’ (two versions of a 15 song record!), turbo fruits, d. striker, and now forget cassettes. so, yeah, it’s been non-stop work. not complaining, though. the FC wraps up on the 15th, then i have hands down album 1 mastering on the 19th, must have mixes done of the new apollo up record and the japanese only mock orange split ep done by the end of the month. so, yeah, probably won’t have a break til maybe sometime in february, though that is quickly filling up, march will maybe be new emery reel, and new hands down stuff. april might be the new mock orange full length and more hands down. and hopefully will start the next carter administration record in february or march…

anyway, i’m really excited about all these records and can’t wait til a little later in the year when most of what i’ve been doing for the past year will be released. i feel it’s my best year yet, as far as work goes, and my happiness with it. the forget cassettes record is already sounding amazing. it’s like they recorded in the biggest room with the nastiest, heaviest drums you can find and then beat the shit out of that with a baseball bat then massage it. that’s sort of how it sounds.

anyway, happy new year and all that jive and i’ll update soon!

September 15th, 2005

hello again. busy busy busy.

in the past month or so, i went to indianapolis with hands down eugene for a mini recording session, then went to new jersey to play some shows with the same band for a label’s viewing pleasure, after which i went to new york city for a few days, which were also my first in the city (previously, i had only driven past NYC on the way to boston).

i sit here now on one of my rare “days off” (which means i don’t have any specific plans or goals to achieve today), waiting for my friends, mock orange, who are playing in town tonight at the basement. very excited about that.

starting next thursday, a week from today, i will be engineering the be your own pet debut full length for xl recordings. steven mcdonald of the band red kross will be producing the album, which will take shape in nashville’s treasure isle recorders. we have three weeks in the studio behind a big trident 80 console. i’m excited.

afterwards, plans are being made to record an additional three songs for the next apollo up LP (yes, it has been expanded from an ep/mini-lp into full LP length), titled chariots of fire. the album should be released in march of 2006 on theory 8 records, who just had a showcase at the CMJ music festival in NYC yesterday, of which apollo up was a part.

back in august, right before relocating to chicago, the whole fantastic world was in the studio finishing up mixing for their 8 or 9 song demo of songs they are working with towards their next full length album.

ocelots will be releasing their second LP, if lightning strikes us both, at the 5spot in east nashville sept 30. go check it out and buy a copy of the record. i think it’s really good and i enjoyed working on it.

more news soon on new releases from the likes of clist, hands down eugene, taylor joiner, and any number of other bands who’ve been here in the past year.

July 23rd, 2005

busy times, busy times. the past month has been a very busy one. one of my busiest in a while… kinda stressful, mostly fun. I’ve done more work on the Clist EP, the Apollo Up mini-LP (or will it end up being fleshed out into a normal LP?). some time was also spent on Falcon tracks, and maybe some Party Cannon, though that might have been the month before… I can’t really remember. Also got more work done on Taylor Joiner’s record. It’s turning out quite nice with a bunch of good, poppy country songs with some swing to them. I need to update my discography pretty badly, as well the whole website, really. more gear, more pictures, more records…

In addition to working on the above, I started demoing the next The Whole Fanastic World album. we demoed 9 songs so far and, i must say, these songs are a lot better than the ones for the first record, though those songs were pretty great, themselves. I also worked on a song with Thad Cockrell, who i worked with over at alex the great last december. he’s trying to get some stuff started as a producer and brought in a girl named Carrie Leigh who has a really nice voice and is into doing some pop songs. It’s unlike much of anything i’ve done before as far as how i approach the production of the song but it’s working out well and i think that we’ll be doing some more songs next week.

also this next week, i will be back at alex the great, this time working with producer Steve McDonald of the band Redd Kross with nashville’s new young heros, Be Your Own Pet. it’s only two days but i’m expecting it to be a lot of fun and it’ll be interesting being in the studio with some people who are neither right at my age or a little older. i want to feel like the old guy every now and then, too, you know. i should also be working more on taylor’s record and finishing up the Clist record. not to mention more work on the apollo up, the whole fantastic demos, and, hopefully, some hands down eugene stuff.

tony should start working on the ibrahim record sometime soon, i think.

that’s about all i can think of for now. hope everyone is well.
jeremy

June 17th, 2005
long time, no post. sorry, been kinda busy. right now, i’m finishing a weekend and a few days of working with my friend taylor on his first record. ole mossy face is providing the backing band line up for the record and it’s sounding really great, so far. earlier this week, i spent 2 days at alex the great helping jacquire king, his assistant andy hunt, and new alex intern josh hood (of the band emery reel and charter oak) set up for a month working on the new album for domino records’ archie bronson outfit, who are in from jolly ole london. they are a great group of guys and are making, from what i can tell, a really cool sounding record. jacquire has worked on some amazing records so it was really cool to be around him for a couple days to see how he works. he brought in a really cool 16 channel neve side car, some helios 69 pre/eq’s, and a bunch of other cool outboard gear, along with 2 protools rigs (while still tracking to 2″ 16 track).

the weekend before, i recorded 4 songs with murfreesboro’s Clist. i hadn’t seen the guys live before nor had i heard them but i think it went really well and we ended up all the songs being pretty much done, as far as tracking goes.

the weekend before that, we started tracking the new apollo up mini-lp, titled Chariots of Fire. it’s sounding fucking huge and amazing. we rented a fair amount of outboard gear for the weekend and even tracked drums up in my wooden bedroom. i’m pretty excited about how it’s turning out and i think we’re going to track more guitars this weekend.

this saturday, june 18, matt moody’s hands down eugene will be playing the release show for their ep, Full Blast. it’s a 6 song sampling of what matt and i have been working on with a rotating lineup since march. we’re proud of it and think it’s a nice taste of what’s to come from the full length record.

the carter administration will be opening saturday’s show, which will be one of 2 scheduled before the august cd release show for their now complete new album, air guitar force one (theory 8 records).

finally, we have two new additions to the studio. the first is a 60’s ludwig silver sparkle set with a 20″ kick, 12″ rack tom, and 16″ floor tom. they look amazing and sound even better. i’ve used at least one of the drums on each of my sessions for the past 3 weeks. we were also given a basketball goal by apollo up’s drummer, jereme frey. so far, there have been many breaks from our sessions to go shoot hoops, so add that to the list of entertainment available here at the studio. thank you, mr. frey!

May 4th, 2005

sorry no post for a while but i got some crazy allergic reaction thing that put me out of business for a good two weeks and, otherwise, i’ve just been kinda busy with stuff.

towards the end of march, three records that i was working on went to mastering… the carter administration’s “air guitar force one”, tommy keenum’s self titled record, and andra moran’s “listening”. as i type this, i think that andra’s is for sale at shows and maybe some shops like grimey’s and tower, tommy’s will be released in june (with a big release show including a band made up of most of the people who played on the album), and the carter record will be out in august (though, as of may 3, we still have no “final master” yet… we’re kinda having trouble picking which version of the record is most appropriate at this point).

at the beginning of april, my hometown friends, mock orange, visited alex the great with brad jones and i recording a couple of tracks with them for a day. it was pretty fun and we ended up with two pretty good sounding songs, though i’m not sure they’re indicitive of the direction the next mock orange release is going. working with them again was a complete pleasure, however, and i think that if i had my way, i’d spend a few months with them in the studio working on their next record cos a full 16+ hour day is still not nearly enough time to do even one of their songs the justice it deserves. some of this is some pretty amazing music, i tell you. i wish that i could put up the tracks we did but, for now, they have to stay out of the public reach for any number of reasons. maybe when they put out the next record i’ll be able to put up these versions, though, which i think are pretty cool.

i’ve been working a whole lot more on matt moody’s album. i think that, right now, we’re up to 12 or 13 songs… maybe 14? i don’t know… either way, we’re piling them up and dude writes new songs like every day so we’re always having something new to work on (not to mention that he has tons of old songs we haven’t even gotten around to laying on tape yet). his first record could be like a quadruple record if he wanted it to be. lots of friends have been playing on it, including the ole mossy face guys, the hands down eugene guys (the electric rock version of matt’s songs), my roommates matt martin (sj and the props, mercator) and tony read (my little studio partner from oh so many broken up hardcore bands) have both played drums on tracks, as well as various percussives, and, the other night, jay phillips (roommate number four, apollo up showoff) played some trombone, trumpet, and acoustic guitar on a new song that is unlike anything else we’ve done on the record thus far. it’s nice to work on a good record with nearest and dearest.

also, the ole mossy face tracks are finally done and are about to be mastered. they’ll be released this summer, i think, by some label in chicago as part of a split 12″ with the Ants.

we’re about to start the new apollo up ep here in a few weeks. it’s gonna be 6 or 7 songs and i know its name but i don’t know if i can say it yet so i won’t. but i will say that it is the same name as a movie with an unforgettable theme song that apollo up has covered before.

i’m sure there’s other stuff to report but i just can’t think what that would be right now.

March 30th, 2005
Yesterday, Susie Krampf, the mother of the only two people (two of her daughters, Katie, and Courtney) I knew when I moved to Tennessee back in 1998, passed away after months of battling with cancer. She was peaceful at home in the company of her husband and daughters, which is probably about all that anyone could really ask for in the end.

When I moved to Murfreesboro to attend MTSU, I was 20 years old and a lot shyer than I am now and I was almost completely friendless in the area. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the idea of living in a new state for the first time in my life, especially after living in northern Indiana for two years and coming off feeling like I didn’t know what the fuck I was gonna do with my life. Luckily, I had really good friends in Katie and her younger sister, Courtney. A few times, Katie invited me up to Brentwood to her parent’s home to visit with them and just get out of Murfreesboro. There, I met Susie and her husband, Craig. They were maybe the friendliest, most generous people that I’ve ever had the fortune to meet, and said that they were there if I ever needed anything from them. Over the years, I’d see them now and then (typically I’d see Susie at shows with her daughters, including Carrie, her oldest) and her positivity and sincere pleasantness continued to be one of the defining elements of her to me. The Krampfs were also maybe the first “musical family” that I’d ever come across. Susie worked for artist management companies and Craig was a long time drummer in bands and as a session player, and he is also a producer. Their enjoyment of and respect for the unexplainable parts of music were the perfect offset for me to the business bullshit and technical blather I was facing in school that made me think “maybe music is all science and not that much fun”. This was before my second renewal of faith over at Alex the Great. Also, about all of the walls of their living room were covered in shelves and boxes of LPs, the rest of the space being taken up by framed records and pictures of Bruce Springsteen (Susie’s favorite artist). It’s hard to verbalize, and I don’t think I’ve necessarily tried to do so before (can’t say I’ve really needed to) but this had a really positive impact on me. Trying not to sound too hippie-ish, but staying in the mindset that the Krampfs have left me in, equating music to love — as well as what most would consider to be love –, there was obviously an abundance of love in that family/house.

Last fall, when I found out about Susie’s newly discovered sickness, I felt really weird about the whole thing. I’ve dealt with cancer before in my own family, but this left me feeling both saddened but, strangely positive. I always thought that it would end in a positive way. After talking to Katie on the phone today, I know that my feeling was right. If you’re going to become sick like that, to not have it be a prolonged and painful experience and to have the support and love of not only your family, but of a whole musical community in a city the size of Nashville, is a pretty amazing thing, and says a lot about the kind of people the Krampfs are, especially the one who birthed three fifths of the family. While Susie Krampf is no longer a physically living part of our lives, she will definitely be a mental/spiritual part of our lives forever. Her positivity has left a distinct imprint on the lives of all those who knew her and, like me, maybe that made them look at music and life in a slightly different, better, way, and they will do the same for someone else… and that’s how you change people’s lives for the better.

Without trying to be too cheesy to finish my thoughts on this, The Beatles said “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” and, for Susie, that is unmeasurable.

You will be missed.

March 6th, 2005
Been sorta busy… tony’s hanging out in boston right now for a week. right before he left, he was recording vocals on the altered statesmen’s tracks. it’s sounding very nice and roomy. lots of air moving around down there. he bought a new 2 channel mic pre right before he left, as well… it was a custom pre made by chris ivan of ivan audio out of dayton. chris redid/sold us our tape machine, fixed up my ampex pres, and fixed up/sold us our cbs compressor. the pre is supposedly set up to sound a bit like a neve 1272 but is a littler thicker sounding and has a few more possibilities for the sound affected only by the preamp. it’s really cool and i tried it out for the first time on a new record i’m starting with Matt Moody (hands down eugene frontman, ole mossy face bassist)… we used the pre on a kick drum being hit by a mallet and we had it break up really heavily and it sounds crazy. i really like the pre a lot, already.

other things i’ve been doing have been working on finishing up the tommy keenum record (we go to mastering at the end of the month), finishing the carter administration full length (we master at the end of the month for this one as well), finishing the ole mossy face recordings, and working with andra moran over at alex the great for a few days and then some over here (where we’re finishing up this weekend before she takes the album to roger moutenout to be mixed on monday).

the back up plan recording ended up being different than i imagined it’d be… we basically just set up tones and then they jammed for a while (usually under 10 minutes in each key they played)… some of the members were meeting each other for the first time that day, and that was pretty strange. while i can’t say that anything revolutionary came out of the recording so far, it was interesting and, like everything else dallas thomas takes part in, it was super heavy. the plan is to now try to construct the songs as we spent that whole day just recording and never really got around to editing very much.

i’m hoping to record a track or two with my hometown friends, mock orange this next month but that is all still in the planning. hopefully we’ll be doing some new apollo up demos sooner than later but nothing is in the book yet so we’ll just have to see.

i can’t wait for you all to hear some of the records that i’ve worked on that are coming out soon. really great stuff, i promise. speaking of which, you should go out and buy a copy of josh rouse’s new album, nashville, which is in stores worldwide now. it’s been getting a lot of good writeups and, i must say, it really is a damn good record. some of josh’s best songs yet, definitely.

more soon. take care.

February 16th, 2005
so, in the past few weeks, i got really sick with the flu for 2 of them and then i worked over at alex the great doing more work on the tommy keenum record that daniel tashian is producing. it’s a fucking good record. the day after i finished on that record, i flew to san francisco to have a day to myself and my visiting friends from reno, sadie and nick, and then to meet up with the whole fantastic world,hang out a bit, then go to los angeles on the following monday. it was my first time to that coast of our country and it was a mindblower. san francisco was amazingly beautiful and fun and my visiting friends were fantastic, as well. after a few days in SF, we drove down the coast, down highway 1, through big sur. it was one of the most intense things i’ve ever seen in my life. literally 10 feet away from this 15 passenger van, packed up with gear and people to its capacity, were cliffs that fell off 100’s of feet into the pacific ocean. chuck bruner, twfw’s roadman, expertly kept us alive cos god knows that those little rails wouldn’t have been able to stop us if we made a wrong move. it was an amazing drive and i think my life is better for it.

los angeles was nothing special but twfw was invited to stay at matt mahaffey’s house to record for a day. matt is from murfreesboro, our neighbor, and fronts the great pop rock band self. he basically offered to track a song to shop around a bit and so the boys recorded a version of a new song, “colossus”, that seemingly turned out really well. it was strange being in on a session but not doing anything, really, unless it were to be run up the stairs and tell someone to put on their headphones or something. but it was a good time watching matt and i think he’s super talented and generous. his house is absolutely amazing. seriously, you have no idea.

tomorrow, dallas thomas (On Command, Falcon, Asschapel), william tyler (lambchop, character, on command, lifeboy), ryan norris (character, the privates, the lone official), and a drummer i don’t know, will be coming into the studio to do a day tracking an experimental record. the idea is to record specific amount of time of them “jamming” in a certain key and then to find favorite spots among the jams and then construct songs out of the parts… i don’t know if we’ll be going pop song structure or weird, broken music, or even metal, but it should be interesting and a lot of fun. details after the session.

the carter administration record goes to mastering march 23, so i have until then to really finish it. shit, it’s sounding good. the ole mossy face stuff is sounding great as well.

okay, i am now going to find my checkbook, pay a parking ticket, and drink some root beer. til next time.

oh, and tony has the altered statesmen in the studio this weekend to start tracking their record. i’m looking forward to hearing it.

January 19th, 2005
This past weekend, Ole Mossy Face came into the studio and tracked 3 songs. I think that these songs will used, along with 2 others they’ve recorded with other people previously, for a split CD release on some label. The songs were really cool and we borrowed a pair of AKG D224E’s from Chris Common (co-owner of Cylo Recording on Music Row), which are basically THE sound of 70s drums… You know, really dead and dry sounding. I went for a early 70’s sound ala The Band’s first two records and we tracked all the main instruments live to the 8-track with all instruments in one room. In preparation, Tony and I constructed some awesome baffles that worked really well. The recording came out great, and pretty close to what I was going for (it’s slightly more ‘hifi’ than i had planned) and I think everyone’s really happy with our weekend’s worth of work.

I’m happy to announce that The Carter Administration will be releasing the record they’ve been working on with me on Nashville’s own powerhouse indie rock label, Theory 8 Records. The album is pretty nearly mixed right now and, I must say, that it sounds fantastic. It’s a huge powerhouse of a record and I’m really happy about that. Expect the record to be released in early May with a 7″ in March that sees the rerelease of their self-recorded tracks, “The Bomb-Ass Singles” and “Tomorrow’s Whiskey Today” on Feable Weiner’s label, Heinous Records. It’s about time some people wanted to start releasing these guys’ records for them.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be working more on the Falcon album, possibly recording some new On Command songs, doing some Emery Reel demos, doing a Willy T, Dallas Thomas, Ryan Norris, and some other guy project whose details I’ll go into later, will be going back to Alex the Great to do a few days with Daniel Tashian, and who knows what else. Hopefully the whole year will be as busy as I’ve been lately. That would make me happy.

As of now, Tony is working on a project with Sami from Lone Official and gearing up to record an album with The Altered Statesmen.

December 25th, 2004

happy holidays to everyone from me and tony.

tony has started working on a solo project by sami of the band Lone Official, a house favorite.

i have worked a week or so on the caitlin cary, thad cockrell duets record and it has been a great time. really cool songs and fantastic people always make for an ideal recording situation.

following my work on thad and caitlin’s record, we pretty much finished up tracking on the next carter administration record and it’s so damn good that it’s silly… now i just have to mix those songs well enough to do them justice and you should hear some new music soon. all very exciting.

i also worked on a 4 song christmas album with the hit-on list, aka todd anderson of nashville zine fame (and also ex-member of the carter administration, who also performed on his christmas ep. todds a and k recorded the songs and i mixed and mastered them. it was a really fun afternoon and everyone was very happy with the way it ended up.

after that, i tracked some more vocals with eric on the falcon album. he had some ideas to change existing vocal parts and they were great ideas and, i thought, improved the verses.

finally, i worked on another keith rollie song entitled “i’m so smooth”. keith can both rap and sing, as evidenced on this track. i wasn’t sure how i’d like doing hiphop stuff but it’s been a lot of fun and the guys are really cool.

so, yeah, it’s been a busy few weeks… and then, this coming monday (the 27th), i will return to alex the great to work another day on caitlin and thad’s record. i’m looking forward to hearing what they did after my time with them on the first part of the session ended. talented people, they are.

have a safe holiday season!

December 8th, 2004

today, battle tapes had its first hiphop session. keith rollie tracked vocals on a track tom mathias and his friends jeremy and andre worked on (i think they all worked on it, that is). i worked with tom for about a year’s time on his record “both keys at the same time”, which was a total rock album, but tom has an alter ego, “dr. beats”, and i guess this falls in line with that. overall, a good time and the guys were all cool. and they’re saying they want to start coming in once a week, so that’s cool.

this past weekend, we tracked drums on the remaining 4 songs for the carter administration album… and more funny pictures were taken of our beloved, drunk andy. hopefully those will show up on someone’s site or something cos they’re comedy gold. at any rate, the record is going to be so damn good, it’s silly. it sounds thick and the songs are right on. i’m really excited about this record being released (though we haven’t even finished overdubs so there’s no telling when it’ll even be mastered). i think we pick up work again around the 17 or 19 of december.

tomorrow, ocelots will be coming back to the studio to do a few overdub fixes and work on the mixes with me a little bit. they want to have their record done by the new year, so we’re probably pretty close to having this baby done… no idea bout the title or release date or anything like that but we’ll see.

the on command record is finally back from manufacturing but i still haven’t seen a copy of it in my hands and the release date/show isn’t until something like january 8th so i’m not sure when i will see it.

last week, i spent my time at alex the great working on a covers record by the singer Tommy Keenum, which was produced by daniel tashian (the bees, josh rouse). it was a great time with a lot of great covers of artists like stevie wonder, nick drake, paul simon, nina simone, the isley brothers, and many more. brad jones was playing upright on this session, like the one at joe pisapia’s, and daniel played drums on half the session, with various other people like john deaderick playing on the record.

i’ll be returning to alex this sunday, the 12, to work through the 16 on caitlin cary’s duets record. she used to be in whiskeytown, if the name sounds familiar.

future plans here at battletapes:
+tony will be recording sammie (from the lone official) this weekend a bit
+possibly recording a new tour-only ep with the whole fantastic world before the new year to take out and sell on their jan/feb tour, which i’m planning on taking part with.
+jeremy frey, apollo up’s drummer, will be getting married this saturday, dec 11. we wish him the best. more news on AU soon, as to what’s coming up with their next recording.
+ole mossy face will be in the studio sometime in january to do a few songs. i’m really excited about this.

we wish you a happy, safe holiday season, if this is the last you hear from us before santa climbs down your chimney.

November 15th, 2004

the carter administration record is off to a great start. we had originally planned to do 3 weekend sessions, tracking and completing 4 songs each session. however, we were doing well and decided to go ahead and track 6 songs halloween weekend so now the record has about half the tracks that it will consist of. i have to say that, while my opinion is obviously slightly to extremely biased, i love these songs a whole lot already and there’s no telling how much better we’ll have them by the time they are deemed “finished”.

this thursday, we will be starting vocal overdubs on the Falcon record. this should prove to be very interesting as, right now, the music is really fantastic and, i think, has a lot of potential to turn people on. i’m sure eric is more than up for the challenge.

i should also be doing some more work on the ocelots record soon, maybe even recording another song for their next full-length.

and, at the end of the month, i will be engineering on a jazz record that daniel tashian is producing over at alex the great. i haven’t worked with daniel since the josh rouse “nashville” record. also, brad jones will be playing upright bass on the album and it’s always a treat when i get to work with the man who i would probably call my recording mentor more than anyone else i can think of.

i should also be working on some ole mossy face songs in the near future. my idea is to track all the music live to tape and then overdub the vocals like we’ve done on the on command and falcon records here at the house, only this time i’ll probably try to have a little more bleed onto the other tracks and they have a lot more instruments than on command or falcon did. my idea is to record them like the Band was recorded on their first few albums. (and i am speaking about the Band, not omf or any other bands…)

as for tony, hopefully he’ll have his own login here sometime but, he’s staying busy mixing stuff he’s already recorded… like the cease upon the capitol record, which i hear him mixing downstairs as i type this.

also, i would like to extend my congrats to aaron yung, my former mercator band-mate, on his marriage november 6 to his new bride, karen. i went up to plymouth, ma to attend the wedding and it was a beautiful time.

oh, and sorry to anyone who has tried to visit the webpage in however long and it’s come up blank. i thought that i had set up my billing on this ISP to be automatically taken from my account two different times but, apparently, the page was taken down and, long story short, it shouldn’t happen again.

hopefully i’ll have up some new studio pictures and some sound samples sooner than later on this site. things have just been pretty busy around here lately and, honestly, i haven’t really figured out how to code the page all that well off of what jay has designed (which furthers my conclusion that i am neither a graphic designer nor am i a web designer. oh well.

October 18th, 2004

For the past week or so, I’ve been working on Dan Tyler’s next record, tentatively titled I Beg The Moon , over at Joe Pisapia’s house. Joe (Joe, Marc’s Brother, Guster) is playing guitar and other assorted instruments on the record, as well as producing it, Brad Jones (producer, fantastic bassist) is playing upright bass, Tony Crow (Lambchop) played piano and keyboards, and Marc Pisapia (Joe, Marc’s Brother, Josh Rouse) played drums on the basic tracks, all of which were done live in Joe’s beautifully converted upstairs studio. It was an amazing time being around some extremely talented and creative people and I learned a lot, musically, from working on the session, and enjoyed Dan’s extreme generosity towards all of us. This was one of those sessions where I think that I am working one of the best jobs in the world.

Mixes are still under way on the Ocelots record and we are inching closer to putting some vocals down on the Falcon album. The On Command record is nearing a release, which should be sometime before the end of the year, as soon as their artwork is finished. Also, the next Josh Rouse album, Nashville, is even better than I remember it from tracking dates. Brad Jones and Josh definitely added a lot of cool stuff to this record, including lots of sweet, sweet pedal steel.

Coming up soon, The Carter Administration will be entering the studio to track their next full length album, and i’m very excited about that, as their new songs are even more fantastic than the older (and still great) ones.

Oh, and I just bought a DVD burner for writing backups, so there will be no more sitting around for a whole day splitting session backups onto 25+ cd-r’s off of the storage drives when they become full.

Tony has had both Cease Upon the Capitol and Nora Deniro in the studio in the past few weeks to do additional work on the recordings he started with them this summer.

September 7th, 2004

Ocelots were in the studio this past sunday to listen to the first mixes of their 12 song album. notes were taken and now some more serious mixing will begin this week.

last night, jay and i demoed a new song intended for apollo up on the protools rig. jay sequenced a drum pattern in reason and i looped it in protools. jay then played a synth line and we recorded guitars, vocals, and maybe something else on the song so that he could show it to the other guys, as a way of explaining where he’d like the song to go. it was a fun, late night. then, today, all of apollo up came over and we demoed 6 new songs that we will record this fall, along with whatever else they write in the meantime, and which will probably be on their next record. the music, like the falcon and on command recordings, were tracked live to the analog 8-track and then transfered to protools were minor edits/fixes were done and where we overdubbed vocal tracks. it turned out pretty great and it served its purpose perfectly. we’ll see if apollo up ends up putting a sample on their website or if we do at some point.

August 30th, 2004

Hey. Thanks to Jay for designing the site and putting up this cool little blog news page. Check out his page and contact him if you want him to do some work for you.

On the recording front, we’ve been pretty busy around here for the past few months and things are still moving right along. Ocelots were in the studio this past Thursday and Friday and managed to track an entire 12 song record in that time and yesterday and today, the mighty Falcon are in the studio working on their 8 song recording. We did all the instrumental tracks live to the 8-track tape machine yesterday and it sounds pretty great so far.

Coming up this next month, a few things recorded here will be released in some form or another, including The Whole Fantastic World’s “Chime!” on Theory 8 Records, On Command’s self titled record, My Last Winter’s EP, and Tom Mathias’ record, “Both Keys At Once”. …And possibly something else that I’m forgetting right now.

Thanks